


It's A Difference, Not A Deficit

by LacrymosaDiesIlla



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LacrymosaDiesIlla/pseuds/LacrymosaDiesIlla
Summary: Nancy Wheeler can’t breathe. Ever since she entered the Upside Down and inhaled that wretched, toxic air, her lungs have failed her. Luckily, she’s not alone. Steve Harrington is also dealing with a newly acquired disability, and Robin Buckley has been living with hers for years. The three of them are now attending college together, but they’re learning far more than what’s being taught in the classroom.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	It's A Difference, Not A Deficit

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this concept I got to my Ronance Tumblr: https://ronance-by-mosa.tumblr.com/post/612650569973334016/so-i-had-this-thought-that-was-basically-remember
> 
> Thank you Anon, I'll be taking this idea and running it into the ground!

A cone of water struck the shower floor, but its rhythmic patter was drowned out by a far less pleasant noise. Beneath the steaming stream, Nancy Wheeler steadied herself against the wall as she doubled over, gasping desperately for air between fits of coughing. Her shoulders shook, her eyes squeezed shut, and she could feel her lungs aching. After a couple of minutes of this miserable hacking, she finally lapsed into ragged, heavy breathing, then slowly lowered herself to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Her shoulders sagged. She was just so _sick_ of being sick. It had been four years since she had entered the Upside Down, since she had breathed that wretched, toxic air, and every day since then her chest had grown tighter and her body more weary. She knew she looked as blighted as she felt. Her hollow face was pale on a good day, tinged with blue around her lips on a bad one, and her posture sagged whenever she had to walk more than a few steps.

After a couple moments of sitting on the floor, she got unsteadily back to her feet and resumed washing her hair, trying to pretend that nothing had happened. Because, really, nothing out of the ordinary had. Her symptoms had begun just a few days after the incident, and hadn’t improved since. After Jonathan and Steve had made her see a doctor, she had discovered the fact that they never would. Her lungs were damaged, and nothing could be done to reverse it. She could only take precautions to slow the progression of her degeneration.

She didn’t want to think about it, so she was glad to hear the door to the communal shower room burst open, a familiar alto ringing out as one of her hallmates entered mid-song. She and Robin had gotten to know each other through Steve after the events at Starcourt, especially after Jonathan and the rest of the Byers family had moved away, leaving Nancy effectively friendless. The fact that they had ended up on the same floor in the same dorm at the same university was quite reassuring for Nancy, because it meant she at least had one person around who knew what she had been through.

Well, two people. Steve was renting a house with a couple of other guys not far from campus, and the three of them hung out often. There was a certain solidarity between Nancy and Steve at that point, both having acquired disabilities from what they had gone through. Steve had been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury after the beatings he had received under Starcourt, and his balance and memory were impacted in an increasingly obvious way.

The curtain to the stall beside hers dragged open, and she could hear Robin turn on the shower. She thought about calling something out to let her friend know that it was her in the next stall over, but before she could, her breathing hitched and she doubled over again in another coughing fit.

The water in Robin’s stall turned off and her singing stopped. “Nance? Is that you?” Robin called out.

Nancy couldn’t get enough of a breath to reply. Her body trembled with the effort of even standing, and she started to worry that she might fall. She heard Robin’s curtain open again, then a beat of silence before Robin spoke again. “Can I do anything to help?”

Still unable to reply, Nancy staggered backwards so that her back was against the wall, then sunk down heavily to the floor for the second time. Her skin made a slapping sound on the tile, which evidently alarmed Robin, because she appeared at the curtain less than a second later.

“Christ, Wheeler,” Robin fussed, turning off the water for her. Nancy reached feebly for her towel with one hand, trying to cover herself, but couldn’t quite reach it. Robin handed it to her, frowning deeply as her coughing began to subside again. The girls sat in silence for a few moments while Nancy regained her breath, but soon Robin spoke.

“I feel like that’s getting worse,” she said tentatively. “You’re looking better now, but your face was almost completely blue.”

Shrugging, Nancy looked down at the floor. “Maybe,” she rasped. There was a brief pause as Robin waited for her to say something else, but she was silent aside from her heavy breathing.

“Do you think you should maybe go back to the doctor?” Robin prompted gently. Nancy shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she replied, leaning her head back against the wall. “I can’t think about that right now. Just… give me a minute.”

“Of course.” Robin watched her for a moment, brows furrowed. “Do you need anything?”

Nancy shook her head, and Robin nodded and disappeared to the other side of the curtain to give her some privacy. Soon, Nancy felt recovered enough to get back to her feet, and went to put in the effort to dry off and dress herself in the clean clothes she had set just outside the curtain. It took her some time, her hands and knees still shaking in exhaustion, but soon she stepped out into the shower hall, fully dressed. Robin was still standing there, waiting for her.

“You okay?” she asked, looking her up and down.

Nodding, Nancy leaned against the wall that separated the shower stalls. “Yeah,” she replied hoarsely. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, good. You should get back to your room, I think there might be a present waiting for you.”

That got Nancy to crack a smile. She and Robin, in addition to hanging out in person, had become “pen pals” without the postage. They had started slipping notes under each other’s doors originally as a way to make plans, but it had turned into a long conversation on what was becoming a packet of notebook paper that would soon be too thick to slide under the door anymore. It was fun, Nancy always looked forward to seeing the stapled sheets on the floor when she opened her door.

“Great,” she rasped. “I’ll go look. Have a good shower - that song you were singing was pretty.”

It was Robin’s turn to grin and pat Nancy on the shoulder as she straightened up from her leaning position. “Thanks, Wheeler,” she replied. “See you later?”

“Definitely.”

With that, Nancy gathered her things and exited the shower hall, out into the hallway. When she returned to her room, she was delighted to find that Robin had indeed left their note packet under the door. Carefully bending over to avoid triggering another coughing fit, she picked it up and brought it to her bed to read it.

 **‘Well that’s ‘cause you’ve never been out of Hawkins before now,’** the note began. Nancy scanned back to the paragraph before to remind herself of what they had been talking about. Right, she had complained of not being able to find her way around town. She had gotten lost the last time she had left campus, and she had written her last reply to Robin right after finding her way back. **‘Do you need a chaperone next time? I happen to be a master traveler.’**

Nancy rolled her eyes, but her lips were still curled into a smile. She knew Robin was exaggerating, bragging because she had been to Europe exactly once. Her parents had taken her to France for ten days so that she could practice the language. It had been a successful trip, apparently, because Robin spoke beautiful French, which Nancy knew from her tendency to throw out phrases in thinly veiled attempts to impress her. Which kind of worked.

Grabbing a textbook from her bedside table to use as a writing surface, Nancy began penning her response. **‘Maybe I do,’** she wrote. **‘Are you sure you’re not overqualified? After all, you’re a great world traveler, and this is a little college town.’** She smirked to herself, then continued writing. It was common for Robin’s responses to be just a couple sentences while her own blended into whole paragraphs. Nancy just had more of an attention span for writing than her friend did. **‘But seriously, it sucked. I walked around for like an hour and ended up back at the grocery store like four times. I swear to God I was reading the street signs, but they just led me in circles. Then I got out of breath and had to sit down on the sidewalk, which made everyone look at me like I was crazy. I was lucky to make it back alive. So I’ll probably take you up on that chaperone offer. But don’t expect to be paid, I don’t have any money. Maybe sexual favors?’** She was kidding, of course, but even writing something so inappropriate made her immediately uncomfortable, so she scribbled it out to the point where it was entirely unreadable. Nancy Wheeler couldn’t make a dirty joke if she tried.

Finished with her response, she folded the packet up and got to her feet, going to go slide it back under Robin’s door. Only about five minutes had passed, and she knew that Robin took long showers, so she wouldn’t be back in her room yet. On her way down the hall, she exchanged a tight-lipped smile with another hallmate whose name escaped her, then made it to Robin’s room. The metal door was painted brown and decorated with two nametags - one for Robin and one for her roommate - each bordered with pastel flowers to represent springtime. Nancy had met June, Robin’s roommate, on a couple of occasions, but didn’t know her well, as Robin usually came to her room when they hung out. It was a sensible decision; Nancy had a single room so that she wouldn’t keep a roommate up with her coughing, and that meant that the girls could spend time together there without worrying about bothering anyone.

Note delivered, Nancy returned to her room and stood in the doorway for a moment, looking around for an idea of something to pass the time. Eventually, her gaze landed on the open textbook on her desk. She sighed and approached, sinking down into her desk chair. Homework may not have been her favorite thing, but she was diligent about it, and she knew that she needed to do the work in order to get the grade she so desperately desired. Coughing fits and tall friends momentarily forgotten, she leaned over her textbook and scanned the page like any other college student.


End file.
